It only lasted for the fraction of a second. Kendal repeated firmly, but this time respectfully, that she was Mr. Jevons's car and he couldn't take her out without Mr. Jevons's orders, for if he did Mr. Jevons would give him the sack.
To which Norah replied that Mr. Jevons would give him the sack if he didn't, or if he made us miss that train by arguing. I told him sternly to look sharp. He looked it and we got off. I had begun to crank up the car myself while I spoke.
But he had wasted three minutes of our valuable fifteen. Though on the open road we speeded up the car to her sixty miles an hour, we had to slow down in the narrow lanes. Once we were held up by a country cart, and once by cows in our track, and Norah was beside herself at each halt.
As we careened into the station yard I thought that my wife would have hurled herself out of the car.
The station-master stood by the booking-office door. He had an ominous air of leisure. And when he saw us coming he looked at his watch.
He told us that we had missed the train by three minutes (the three minutes that Kendal had wasted).
I had jumped out of the car and was telling Kendal that it was all his fault, and that if he'd done what he was told we should have caught the train, when he turned on me as only a chauffeur convicted of folly can turn.
"Stand away from the car, sir," he shouted. He jerked her nose round with the savage energy of a chauffeur in the wrong; he seemed to impart his own fury to the car. She snorted and screamed as he backed her and drove her forward and backed her again.
And again he shouted to me. "You get in, sir, if you don't want to be left be'ind."
As he seemed to be animated chiefly by the fear of Jevons (whom, by the way, he adored), we could only suppose that his idea was to fly back to Amershott in time for Jimmy's wire.